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Monday, January 26, 2015

Becoming a Tone It Up girl

How did I start exercising religiously and become enamored with everything fitness?

The short answer - only by the grace of God!I have never been into sports, or been active. At all. I would feign any number of sicknesses to get out of gym class in school; and you could not have paid me to try out for a sports team. Working out was never on my radar.Toward the end of 2013 I was feeling pretty lousy about myself. I had wanted to start getting into shape earlier that year, but an emergency appendectomy and lengthy recovery period took the wind out of my sails.That summer, I noticed that while swimming with my kids I became winded super easily. Going up stairs quickly was a job. And I knew that running any distance, no matter how short, would have been a serious struggle.I signed up for a 5k for October, 2013 and started running up to two miles a few times a week. After the 5k, I lost my motivation and had zero direction as two what do to next to get into shape.Then, in December 2013, I randomly remembered a YouTube video I had discovered a few years back. That memory was ultimately a plunge down a fitness rabbit hole for me.Karena and Katrina, the Tone It Up girls, changed my life. My timing was so perfect because they were just starting their "Love Your Body" challenge series and laid out weekly workout schedules and guidelines to follow. The Tone It Up model and community gave me the direction and motivation I had been lacking.Something just, clicked.Every Sunday I make my weekly workout schedule so I know what to expect of the week. I get up early every morning to get in a sweaty cardio session before making breakfast for my fam. Later in the day, I work on getting in 20-30 minutes of body weight and free weight strength training. It's been over a year since discovering Tone It Up, and now I can't imagine my life without consisent exercise. I have never felt better about mysef, and the benefits have been so much greater and deeper than any minute changes in my appearance or weight that may have occured.I love this article, "45 Reasons to exercise and eat right that aren't about weight loss". I didn't start working out to lose weight, I started it as one facet of my journey to becoming the best possible "me" I can be.If you're looking for a place to start, I cannot praise the Tone It Up system enough. They post weekly schedules, and have oodles of free You Tube videos. If you're up for an investment, the nutrition plan and DVD's are pretty amazing as well.Here is my schedule for this week with links to each workout. My goal is always to do at least what is on the schedule, and I often throw in an extra workout, or push myself even harder with my cardio. The schedule is so key, it is truly the blueprint for success, in my opinion!